Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy facts for kids

The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy is a famous dance for a ballerina. It is the third part of The Nutcracker pas de deux. This pas de deux is a special dance for two people. It comes from Act 2 of the 1892 ballet The Nutcracker. The main female dancer performs this beautiful piece. Lev Ivanov created the dance steps, and Tchaikovsky wrote the music.

A Magical New Instrument

The ballet's creator, Marius Petipa, wanted the music for the Sugar Plum Fairy to sound like "drops of water shooting from a fountain." Tchaikovsky found the perfect instrument for this sound in Paris in 1891. He discovered the recently invented celesta.

What is a Celesta?

The celesta looks a bit like a piano. But it sounds like bells. Tchaikovsky described it as "midway between a tiny piano and a Glockenspiel, with a divinely wonderful sound." He really wanted to use the celesta in The Nutcracker. He even asked his publisher to buy one secretly. He didn't want other Russian composers to find out and use it before him!

The Celesta's Debut

Tchaikovsky first showed the celesta to Russian music lovers on March 19, 1892. This was when the Nutcracker Suite was played in St. Petersburg. The instrument is now always linked to the Sugar Plum Fairy. You can hear it in other parts of Act 2 of The Nutcracker too. The "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" is one of the ballet's most famous songs. You might even hear it in TV commercials around Christmas!

The Dance Steps

There isn't much information about the very first dance steps for the Sugar Plum Fairy. In the first shows, the fast part at the end of the dance was cut.

How the Dance Looked

According to Roland John Wiley, the dance likely used short pointe steps. These are steps done on the tips of the toes. It also included petite batteries (small, quick leg movements) and attitudes (a pose where one leg is lifted). The dance seemed to build up in energy. It started with delicate, sharp movements. Then it moved to circular shapes. Near the end, it had simpler but more skillful moves. These included pirouettes (spins) and rounds de jambe (circular leg movements).

The First Sugar Plum Fairy

The very first dancer to play the Sugar Plum Fairy was Antonietta Dell'Era. She was a skilled dancer. However, Tchaikovsky's brother, Modest, said she was a bit chubby and not very pretty.

A Small Role

Even though the Sugar Plum Fairy is the main ballerina in The Nutcracker, she doesn't have much dancing to do. Early critics thought this was a big problem. Dell'Era tried to make her role bigger in later shows. She added a gavotte (a type of dance) by Czibulka into the music.

Images for kids

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  (Left to right) Lydia Rubtsova as Marianna, Stanislava Belinskaya as Clara and Vassily Stukolkin as Fritz, in the original production of The Nutcracker (Imperial Mariinsky Theatre, Saint Petersburg, 1892)

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  Varvara Nikitina as the Sugar Plum Fairy and Pavel Gerdt as the Cavalier, in a later performance in the original run of The Nutcracker, 1892

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  Ivan Vsevolozhsky's original costume sketch for The Nutcracker (1892)

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  Ivan Vsevolozhsky's original costume designs for Mother Gigogne and her Polichinelle children, 1892

See also

In Spanish: El cascanueces para niños